1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to modules and, more specifically, to a card module attachable to data terminal equipment, and once attached, executing an application-specific program stored therein, and transmitting its result to the data terminal equipment.
2. Description of the Background Art
Recently, portable devices are rapidly becoming popular, and a user plays games with his/her portable game machine, or listens to music with his/her portable audio player. There also has appeared a portable navigation device guiding a user which way to go, and indicating where he/she currently is.
The problem here is, such conventional portable devices are each designed for a single application, and therefore the user has to purchase each different portable device for his/her varying purposes.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a card module of a type attached to data terminal equipment to deal with a user""s varying purposes at low cost.
An aspect of the present invention is directed to a module attachable to data terminal equipment, comprising: a first storage for storing an application-specific program; a first processing unit for executing the program stored in the first storage; a first bus through which an execution result from the first processing unit is transferred; and a first communications controller for transmitting to the data terminal equipment the execution result transferred through the first bus. The data terminal equipment then outputs the execution result transmitted from the first communications controller from an internal output part.
As described above, in the aspect, the module stores and executes an application-specific program, and a result executed thereby is outputted from the data terminal equipment. Therefore, depending on what application the module is specific for, a single data terminal equipment can be of various types. For example, if a user wants to listen to music, the data terminal equipment will be an audio player. As such, according to the aspect, a single data terminal equipment together with several modules each having a different program stored therein can deal with the user""s varying purposes. Therefore, the user has no more need to spend money to buy as many devices to do with whatever he/she wants. Further, according to the aspect, since the module executes such application-specific programs, components of the module can be always optimally selected.
These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.